Book Reviews
What can I say? Jackson Brodie is back, as ambivalent and tortured and hella cool as ever. And as far as this reader is concerned, Kate Atkinson can do no wrong.
The story starts in the present with a pretty icky family situation then plunges into the mythological ancient world with a brief sidetrack to Shakespearean London. It took me a while to get into this novel by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, but once I did, I was totally entranced, hooked and reeled right in. Immensely powerful, dramatic and satisfying.
If you read this novel properly, it will change your life...
Julie Schumacher brings back Jason Fitger, the hapless academic hero of Dear Committee Members.
All the hype is dead on. This novel and this writer are extraordinary.
Quirky and strange tale of a Francophone couple whose lives are turned upside down when the husband suddenly disappears from his Silverado truck. Winters presents their dialogue in untranslated joual, but it somehow works even for a reader like me with only rudimentary high school French. Some very bizarre and deeply funny moments, especially as Agathe discovers “le rock and roll”.
Here’s a quiz: close your eyes. Remember a novel that moved you, stayed with you. What is it ...
This is a full, rich novel, informed by an acute awareness of race, class and gender. If the author seems a little too in love with her central character, that flaw is more than compensated for by the astuteness of her observations of contemporary American and African life as seen through the eyes of her central character, Ifemelu.